Video Dispatches Provide Highlights of CSM 2013

Couldn't
make it to the Combined Sections Meeting (CSM)? Get a sense of being there by
watching APTA's collection of short video dispatches
from San Diego.

Included
in the series are reports on APTA's "Beyond Vision 2020" open forum,
PT-PAC's 40th anniversary celebration, the Foundation for Physical
Therapy's Log 'N Blog campaign, the "Going Beyond Borders" session on
international collaboration, the Student Caucus on physician-owned physical
therapy services, and more.

It's
impossible to capture everything that occurs at CSM, with 4 days of educational
programming and countless networking events, but this series provides a glimpse
of the wide range of opportunities.

Study Finds High Utilization of Services for Joint, Back Pain Among All Ages

Osteoarthritis/joint disorders
and back pain rank among the most common conditions for visits to health care
providers, according to a new Mayo Clinic Proceedings
study.

The Mayo team used the Rochester Epidemiology Project, a unique,
comprehensive medical records linkage system, to track more than 140,000
Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents who visited Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical
Center, and other Olmsted County health care providers between January 1, 2005,
and December 31, 2009. Researchers then systematically categorized patient
diagnoses into disease groups. The top disease groups
include:

skin disorders

osteoarthritis/joint disorders

back problems

cholesterol problems

upper respiratory conditions (not including asthma)

anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder

chronic neurologic disorders

high blood pressure

headaches/migraine

diabetes

"Surprisingly,
the most prevalent nonacute conditions in our community were not chronic
conditions related to aging, such as diabetes and heart disease, but rather
conditions that affect both genders and all age groups," says Jennifer St
Sauver, PhD, primary author of the study.

The
authors say their finding of skin and back problems as major drivers of health
care utilization affirms the importance of moving beyond the commonly
recognized health care priorities such as diabetes, heart disease, or cancer.
"Our findings highlight opportunities to improve health care and decrease
costs related to common nonacute conditions as we move forward through the
changing health care landscape," they write.

New Websites Aim to Educate Stakeholders, Consumers About Insurance Marketplace

The
Department of Health and Human Services recently launched 2 websites to educate
stakeholders and consumers about the health insurance exchanges, which now are referred
to as the Health Insurance Marketplace (Marketplace).

The
stakeholder website offers users a resources toolkit, talking points, an overview of
consumer research, and survey results about low-income
parents' experiences with their children's health insurance coverage and awareness
of and attitudes toward Medicaid and CHIP programs. The consumer website
offers basic information on the Marketplace, such as who is eligible, and links to websites
that describe each state’s Marketplace efforts thus far. The consumer page will
have more information about the states' health plans in October.